Interactive: Mapping Women's Reproductive Health in Texas

Texas women’s reproductive rights have been in the spotlight recently amid debate over the federal decision to cut funding for the state’s Women’s Health Program. But whether state lawmakers should be allowed to oust health care providers affiliated with abortion clinics from the program or whether federal lawmakers should oust Texas for enforcing rules that break federal Medicaid law, one fact remains: Women get pregnant, have babies and have abortions in Texas.

The Tribune has put together this interactive to show just how many pregnancies, births and abortions occur across the Lone Star State. All of the data included in this interactive was collected and published by the Texas Department of State Health Services. The numbers shown on the map and table are from 2009, the most recent available data. Additional information on earlier years can be found here.

Texas ranks near the top nationally in terms of teen pregnancy and teen birth rates. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, Texas had the fourth highest pregnancy rate and the third highest birth rate for females ages 15 to 19 in 2005.

Twenty-five of every 1,000 girls between the ages of 13 and 17 in Texas became pregnant in 2009, according to the DSHS data. And 21 of those 25 gave birth. That translates to 18,720 teenage mothers and 2,976 Texas teens who had an abortion. The majority of the girls who aborted their pregnancies were between the ages of 15 and 17; only about 200 abortions per year are performed on girls under the age of 15.

On average, Texas women had nearly 77,000 abortions annually from 2005 to 2009. The total number of abortions in 2009 was 74,835. And the majority of abortions each year are performed on women between the ages of 20 and 24.

Although there were zero abortions by residents in nine Texas counties in 2009, there has been at least one resident who had an abortion from every county from 2005 to 2009 — with one exception, Kent County, in rural West Texas. Kent doesn’t have the lowest female population, but there were barely more than 100 women between the ages of 15 and 44 living there in 2009.

The interactive shows some of the DSHS statistics broken down by age and race or ethnicity. Though in other data sets, such as the U.S. Census and American Community Survey, individuals who identify as Hispanic may also identify as white, the DSHS data separates the count of Hispanic individuals from white individuals.

To use the interactive, start by selecting the map you’d like to view from the drop-down menu. Then click on any county to load details to compare to the statewide data in the table below.